When the Lights Go on Again by Annie Groves

so that she could be rescued. It had been only after Lou had joined the WAAF that she had started having these awful feelings of panic and fear, flashbacks to how it had felt to be trapped under the bomb. At first she had tried to ignore those feelings, hoping that if she did they would simply go away, but they hadn’t. Instead they’d grown worse, tormenting her at every turn, making her afraid to go to sleep in case she woke up in the darkness thinking she was still trapped. The torch protected her, keeping the darkness at bay, but nothing could protect her from her fears. Fears that were all the worse for her knowing that every day Bobby risked losing his own life because he worked in bomb disposal. The thought of him being trapped as she had been terrified her. She had forbidden him to talk to her about his work because she simply couldn’t bear hearing about the shafts they had to dig to get down to some of the bombs. She had nightmares about those shafts;about being trapped in one of them with the earth burying her, slowly choking her to death.
    There was no point in her trying to explain to anyone how she felt. Who would understand? Not Bobby, who laughed at her when she said that his work was too dangerous, not Lou, who loved nothing more than risking her own life flying in a plane, not the girls she worked with at the telephone exchange, who all had boyfriends or husbands, doing their bit for the country, not her elder sister, Grace, either, who talked about the bravery of the wounded soldiers she nursed, and certainly not her parents, who were so proud of Luke. They would all think she was a coward and be ashamed of her. She felt ashamed of herself. Ashamed and afraid and so very alone.
    Tears trickled down Sasha’s face, her hold on the little torch tightening, her last thought before she fell asleep that she must wake up before Lou so that she could switch off the torch so Lou wouldn’t know about it.

SIX
    ‘That’s nearly a full week’s ration of butter you’ve just spread on your toast,’ Bella pointed out crossly to her brother, as she poured herself a cup of tea. Her mother’s kitchen was nothing like as pretty as her own, or as homely and comfortable as her aunt Jean’s, even though Vi had had the kitchen newly fitted out with the very latest gas oven, and a smart metal unit painted cream and green, as well as a brand-new table and four chairs, when the family had moved into the house just a couple of years before the start of the war.
    ‘Well, you can get some more easily enough from that nursery of yours, without anyone being the wiser, since you run it, can’t you?’ Charlie demanded, without lifting his gaze from the paper he was reading.
    ‘You may think it acceptable to steal from others, Charlie, but I certainly don’t,’ Bella told him pointedly.
    Charlie heaved an irritable sigh. ‘Oh, for God’s sake stop moralising, Bella, just because you’ve become a Goody Two-Shoes. I remember how youpersuaded Alan to marry you, even if you’d rather forget.’
    Bella wasn’t going to deny that she had tricked her first husband into marrying her. She had been a different person then, a stupid shallow selfish person who had learned the hard way that what she had done was wrong. Alan was dead now and she had been given the chance to make a new life for herself with the man she loved.
    ‘What I did was wrong, but I’ve paid for my wrongdoing. Unlike you, Charlie.’
    Charlie threw down the paper. ‘If you’re referring to that brat you keep insisting is mine, I’ve a good mind to go round and see—’
    ‘Don’t you dare go anywhere near Lena. She’s happy now, with Gavin, and she doesn’t need you upsetting her,’ Bella interrupted him, realising too late when she saw the look in his eyes that she had said too much and by doing so had created exactly the situation she had wanted to avoid, sparking Charlie’s interest in Lena, instead of protecting her.
    ‘Who says I’d be